Finding the Higgs? Good news. Finding its mass? Not so good.

"Fireballs of doom" from a quantum phase change would wipe out present Universe.

Ohio State's Christopher Hill joked he was showing scenes of an impending i-Product launch, and it was easy to believe him: young people were setting up mats in a hallway, ready to spend the night to secure a space in line for the big reveal. Except the date was July 3 and the location was CERN—where the discovery of the Higgs boson would be announced the next day.

It's clear the LHC worked as intended and has definitively identified a Higgs-like particle. Hill put the chance of the ATLAS detector having registered a statistical fluke at less than 10-11, and he noted that wasn't even considering the data generated by its partner, the CMS detector. But is it really the one-and-only Higgs and, if so, what does that mean? Hill was part of a panel that discussed those questions at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As theorist Joe Lykken of Fermilab pointed out, the answers matter. If current results hold up, they indicate the Universe is currently inhabiting what's called a false quantum vacuum. If it were ever to reach the real one, its existing structures (including us), would go away in what Lykken called "fireballs of doom."

We'll look at the less depressing stuff first, shall we?

Zeroing in on the Higgs

Thanks to the Standard Model, we were able to make some very specific predictions about the Higgs. These include the frequency with which it will decay via different pathways: two gamma-rays, two Z bosons (which further decay to four muons), etc. We can also predict the frequency of similar looking events that would occur if there were no Higgs. We can then scan each of the decay pathways (called channels), looking for energies where there is an excess of events, or bump. Bumps have shown up in several channels in roughly the same place in both CMS and ATLAS, which is why we know there's a new particle.

But we still don't know precisely what particle it is. The Standard Model Higgs should have a couple of properties: it should be scalar and should have a spin of zero. According to Hill, the new particle is almost certainly scalar; he showed a graph where the alternative, pseudoscalar, was nearly ruled out. Right now, spin is less clearly defined. It's likely to be zero, but we haven't yet ruled out a spin of two. So far, so Higgs-like.

The Higgs is the particle form of a quantum field that pervades our Universe (it's a single quantum of the field), providing other particles with mass. In order to do that, its interactions with other particles vary—particles are heavier if they have stronger interactions with the Higgs. So, teams at CERN are sifting through the LHC data, checking for the strengths of these interactions. So far, with a few exceptions, the new particle is acting like the Higgs, although the error bars on these measurements are rather large.

As we said above, the Higgs is detected in a number of channels and each of them produces an independent estimate of its mass (along with an estimated error). As of the data Hill showed, not all of these estimates had converged on the same value, although they were all consistent within the given errors. These can also be combined mathematically for a single estimate, with each of the two detectors producing a value. So far, these overall estimates are quite close: CMS has the particle at 125.8GeV, Atlas at 125.2GeV. Again, the error bars on these values overlap.

Oops, there goes the Universe

That specific mass may seem fairly trivial—if it were 130GeV, would you care? Lykken made the argument you probably should. But he took some time to build to that.

Lykken pointed out, as the measurements mentioned above get more precise, we may find the Higgs isn't decaying at precisely the rates we expect it to. This may be because we have some details of the Standard Model wrong. Or, it could be a sign the Higgs is also decaying into some particles we don't know about—particles that are dark matter candidates would be a prime choice. The behavior of the Higgs might also provide some indication of why there's such a large excess of matter in the Universe.

But much of Lykken's talk focused on the mass. As we mentioned above, the Higgs field pervades the entire Universe; the vacuum of space is filled with it. And, with a value for the Higgs mass, we can start looking into the properties of the Higgs filed and thus the vacuum itself. "When we do this calculation," Lykken said, "we get a nasty surprise."

It turns out we're not living in a stable vacuum. Eventually, the Universe will reach a point where the contents of the vacuum are the lowest energy possible, which means it will reach the most stable state possible. The mass of the Higgs tells us we're not there yet, but are stuck in a metastable state at a somewhat higher energy. That means the Universe will be looking for an excuse to undergo a phase transition and enter the lower state.

What would that transition look like? In Lykken's words, again, "fireballs of doom will form spontaneously and destroy the Universe." Since the change would alter the very fabric of the Universe, anything embedded in that fabric—galaxies, planets, us—would be trashed during the transition. When an audience member asked "Are the fireballs of doom like ice-9?" Lykken replied, "They're even worse than that."

Lykken offered a couple of reasons for hope. He noted the outcome of these calculations is extremely sensitive to the values involved. Simply shifting the top quark's mass by two percent to a value that's still within the error bars of most measurements, would make for a far more stable Universe.

And then there's supersymmetry. The news for supersymmetry out of the LHC has generally been negative, as various models with low-mass particles have been ruled out by the existing data (we'll have more on that shortly). But supersymmetry actually predicts five Higgs particles. (Lykken noted this by showing a slide with five different photos of Higgs taken at various points in his career, in which he was "differing in mass and other properties, as happens to all of us.") So, when the LHC starts up at higher energies in a couple of years, we'll actually be looking for additional, heavier versions of the Higgs.

If those are found, then the destruction of our Universe would be permanently put on hold. "If you don't like that fate of the Universe," Lykken said, "root for supersymmetry"

The BBC article on this I read today made it sound more like an outcome related (in time and circumstance) to late stages of heat death in the universe -- are they wrong about that? It is BBC, their science news can be woefully off at times.

Quote:

A concept known as vacuum instability could result, billions of years from now, in a new universe opening up in the present one and replacing it.

1. Is it theoretically possible to artificially trigger these fireballs if they do exist?

2. Would a collapse into a lower energy state happen everywhere in the universe at once, or would it start in one place and travel outwards at the speed of light or even superluminally? Perhaps some careless alien civilization has already doomed us all and we just don't know it yet...

Is the metastable state related to the Goldilocks-like physics due to the weak anthropic principle?

"Why yes, we have a jagged 11-dimensional form balanced precariously on the tip of a four-dimensional hypercube tilted to stand on one of its corners. Of course, the hypercube is on the back of a turtle, which is on the back of another turtle. Turns out, it really is turtles all the way down."

1. Is it theoretically possible to artificially trigger these fireballs if they do exist?

2. Would a collapse into a lower energy state happen everywhere in the universe at once, or would it start in one place and travel outwards at the speed of light or even superluminally? Perhaps some careless alien civilization has already doomed us all and we just don't know it yet...

The phase transition is trigger by a Tralfmadorian experiment involving a new type of rocket fuel. It affects/affected/will affect the entire Universe at once.

Edit: I know the fireballs of doom are predicted to propagate at light speed. Apparently Kurt Vonnegut wasn't a physicist.

So the real question to me is, what is holding the new universe back, and where would it come from? Are we in layer x of y, and x+1 is the next iteration?

Would our universe truly be destroyed, or would it level-up and become the higgs field of the next universe to form?

What role would black holes play in this? Do they play a part in the death of this universe, or do they die along with it?

Is this process kinda like the fractal patterns that never end? It grows bigger until the pattern once again repeats itself? That is what our universe is doing right? It is getting bigger by our observations. Maybe it only appears to be getting bigger, and everything is just shrinking as it fills its available space?

Edit- If you downvote me, it would be appreciated if you could respond as well and let me know your thoughts on this. I am fascinated with topics like this.

1. Is it theoretically possible to artificially trigger these fireballs if they do exist?

2. Would a collapse into a lower energy state happen everywhere in the universe at once, or would it start in one place and travel outwards at the speed of light or even superluminally? Perhaps some careless alien civilization has already doomed us all and we just don't know it yet...

1) Maybe- more research needed. The idea is that the Higgs field has a low energy stable state that it now occupies, and if the Standard Model is correct, an even more stable state at very high energy, with a vast swath of instability in between. The Higgs field cannot classically transition between these two stable states, but it can get there through quantum tunneling with tiny probability. You'd artificially cause the change by lowering the instability of the in-between region, so that tunneling is more likely, in the same way a chemical reaction rate is increased by a catalyst. Difficult to imagine what that might be.

2) It would happen at one unlucky point in the Universe, and spread in a horrible wave of destruction at light speed. As the bubble expanded, energy from the Higgs field falling into a lower energy state would be released in an event the likes of which the Universe has not seen since the Big Bang.

I want to add that this is nothing to worry about. If the Higgs mass were more like 120 GeV, this collapse would be imminent (assuming the SM is correct, and it probably isn't). If the Higgs mass were more like 130 GeV, this collapse would not happen (same assumption). At 125 GeV, we're right on the border region (same assumption), where we need to know the other parameters precisely in order to figure out exactly which state is more stable, and in any case they're so close that the expected time of vacuum collapse is so large as to be irrelevant.

And it wouldn't be possible to create these fireballs, at least in such a way that they then began to do their intended function, right? That would require the entire universe to be in the correct state, right? And for the universe to be in the correct state probably depends on influences beyond our experience or potential experience.

Also, if the new universe is being held back, what if we accidentally triggered the correct conditions in extremely small amounts of space? Oops, here comes the new universe a little early? I mean, if the conditions are met, they are met right?

So the real question to me is, what is holding the new universe back, and where would it come from? Are we in layer x of y, and x+1 is the next iteration?

Would our universe truly be destroyed, or would it level-up and become the higgs field of the next universe to form?

What role would black holes play in this? Do they play a part in the death of this universe, or do they die along with it?

Is this process kinda like the fractal patterns that never end? It grows bigger until the pattern once again repeats itself? That is what our universe is doing right? It is getting bigger by our observations. Maybe it only appears to be getting bigger, and everything is just shrinking as it fills its available space?

This is Great News! When the Universe collapses there will be another big bang. That means the Universe pulses, that means it's Eternal. Since information is never lost, each version of the Universe could create another level of complexity that interacts with all others. It could explain dimensionality. Each version of the Universe adding complexity to the information from the last one. Perhaps the first Universe was one dimensional, but successive Universes created more and future Universes will be even more complex!

Wow. So is this kinda like our vacuum is at one point going to be powerful enough to "break" the fabric of space, causing energy to spill over from whatever is beyond our universe, in the next "dimension?" And once that occurs, it will basically be another big bang, a big bang resulting in yet another universe?

Are these "fireballs of doom" actually the big bang? Is there a fabric in place that keeps a balance, and when the vacuum reaches a certain power, the fabric tears, spilling contents into our plane?

Boggles my mind no matter how I look at it.

Also, haven't we found possible evidence for other big bang events in our own universe? What does that mean?

Reminds me of those choice games we played in grade school, like whether you'd rather drink a gallon of dog piss or a gallon of cat piss...

Which is scarier to contemplate? Heat death? Or 'fireballs of doom'?

In all seriousness though, first, yes, I do get that those are not mutually exclusive, and in fact may be mutually inclusive depending on the mass of the Higgs. And secondly I really wish that there was perhaps a tad bit more cogent explaination than 'fireballs of doom' that are 'worse than ice nine'. I know what a phase change is, but fireballs of doom is kinda... ambiguous, scientifically speaking at least. It sounds to my ears at least more like a catchy phrase to impress upon potentially scientifically illiterate people how bad such a phase change would be for our current state of cosmic affairs and this ourselves as well.

Well, I fully expect calls to decom the LHC due to great fireballs of doom shortly.

In a way, if you think about it, it's pretty scary to go for a drive. You can see all of the massive fixed objects next to the road, and of course the other high-velocity objects on the road, that you could run into and die, if one or more of your tires transitioned into a lower energy state.

The solution of course, is just to continue driving, after painting all of the windows black.

So the real question to me is, what is holding the new universe back, and where would it come from? Are we in layer x of y, and x+1 is the next iteration?

Would our universe truly be destroyed, or would it level-up and become the higgs field of the next universe to form?

What role would black holes play in this? Do they play a part in the death of this universe, or do they die along with it?

Is this process kinda like the fractal patterns that never end? It grows bigger until the pattern once again repeats itself? That is what our universe is doing right? It is getting bigger by our observations. Maybe it only appears to be getting bigger, and everything is just shrinking as it fills its available space?

This is Great News! When the Universe collapses there will be another big bang. That means the Universe pulses, that means it's Eternal. Since information is never lost, each version of the Universe could create another level of complexity that interacts with all others. It could explain dimensionality. Each version of the Universe adding complexity to the information from the last one. Perhaps the first Universe was one dimensional, but successive Universes created more and future Universes will be even more complex!

It wouldn't necessarily mean it is eternal, since we do not know where the new universe is before it becomes the new universe. If there is a finite amount of energy beyond the veil, it would run out eventually. If it did run out, would that be a forthcoming heat-death, or something else entirely? It would be nice to think that the entire thing, our universe and beyond, could somehow recycle once it reached such a state, if such a state is possible. If it was not, wouldn't that mean we live in a, I don't even know what to call it now, infinite place, filled with infinite everything?

Wait, this could happen at ANY time right? I mean, if we were to be destroyed 5 billion years from now, that would mean that the universe is actually already in the process said destruction, since we can't see that which is traveling at light speed until it is already here.

We would never know it, even seconds before it happened, right? It would basically overtake us in what amounts to instantaneous fashion. No observation, no warning, just here one second and gone the next. There would be no warning, no gazing at the stars watching our impending doom approach, it would be like flipping a light switch, one moment here, the next gone.

No, that clip was really funny. So many questions, no answers. Your post just reminded me of it.

Actually, most of the posts on this article have many questions.

I would like to know the answers to those questions myself (both for the Youtube clip and your post).

Lol yeah, Prometheus is great, until you start to ask questions, which lead to more questions, and much of it doesn't make sense. That's why I only watched it once, and that was in the theater, where it was much easier to suspend disbelief. Even then, however, I still wondered how Fassbender could talk to the Alien when they met him, and that kinda ruined it for me.

Edit- That, and how does the xenomorph gestate, then grow enormously in what must have been hours at most. I'm no biologist, but I am pretty sure lifeforms need sustenance to grow, and it wasn't snacking.

If my memory serves me correctly, String Theory is dependent on Super Symmetry. If we find that there's no evidence of Super Symmetry then we have no choice but to discard String Theory. From the article it points out that if Super Symmetry is correctly then there will be 5 Higgs particles. If we don't measure those in the future, then Super Symmetry will be brought into question, which in turn will bring String Theory into question.